James Massola, Noel Towell, Matthew Knott
The Abbott government will take the axe to the the public service in the federal budget, cutting thousands of jobs in the Australian Tax Office and merging the Immigration and Customs departments.

Noel Towell
Australian soldiers who have been moonlighting as security guards at offshore immigration detentions camps, including Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, are quitting their jobs and heading home.

Noel Towell
Australia's 165,000 federal bureaucrats will face a choice of zero pay rises for three years or deep cuts to their entitlements under the Abbott government's aggressive new approach to its employees.